There’s been a question that we British seem to have ignored until a related situation has come up. Typical British idea, deal with it when we come to it. Can we really avoid it for much longer? The respective football associations within the UK and FIFA should get together and sort this out like adults and seriously ask the question “Can a foreigner play football for my country?”
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a gentleman’s agreement which states some criteria a person must meet to represent one of these four national teams. One which states that a person may represent a national side if a parent or grandparent was born in that nation. Another being the rule if a person was educated for at least five years while under the age of 18.
Jack Wilshere sparked debate in an interview while on England duty after a weekend of great performances from foreign players in the English Premier League. Wilshere said, “the only people who should play for England are English people. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years, I’m not going to play for Spain.”
After receiving a lot of criticism Wilshere went on to twitter and posted “I wasn’t referring to Jazunaj. The question was should foreign players play for England?”
Januzaj, 18, had a sensational game last weekend for Manchester United against Sunderland, scoring both goals which gave David Moyes’ Red Devils the 3 points. Being eligible to play for other countries already, not including England at the moment, Januzaj seems to be exploring his options, with his father seeming to play a role in his decision.
With the amount of great foreign talent in the Premier League can anyone blame the FA for wanting to improve by attracting unattached players? But this would not see the improvement of young English players, which is vitally important after bad performances from the Under 21s in the European Championships.
Former Scotland and Aberdeen manager Craig Brown has revealed that he was surprised to see that in the Scottish Premier League last year, half of the minutes played last season were represented by Scottish players. This is rather disappointing for the Scottish national team also, who want to improve in every aspect possible.
Scotland assistant manager Mark McGhee was in a press conference ahead of Tuesday night’s game at Hamden against Croatia. Asked what his opinion was on the current state of eligibility McGhee replied, “The criteria set down has been thought out and an agreement made between the four associations. It seems to me that works well enough. We benefited from Jordan Rhodes and the five-year under-18 rule and we will continue to look at that sort of thing under the rules set and we are happy with that.”
Most international teams go through a process of picking out players they want to have involved with the squad and cap them. The eligibility debate set the stage for McGhee to announce that he Gordon Strachan and McCall have eyes on a mystery player who may eligible to play for Scotland through a grandparent rule.
“Last night round the table I threw up a name and we immediately got phones ringing and that player is away to explore his heritage.” McGhee said, “We do that fairly regularly it’s not like a one off. It’s a process , I think, we are entitled to go through when we see someone decent and he doesn’t seem to be appearing for anybody.”
This demonstrates that the home nations can explore the options available and utilise them to the utmost of their ability but would it be moral? An even better question would be would it be practical?
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